Net Entertainment Expands to Pennsylvania, USA

July 24, 2019July 24, 2019
by Casino.zone

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Net Entertainment Expands to Pennsylvania, USA

Pennsylvania fairly recently became the third state in the United States to regulate the online casino industry, and Net Entertainment will officially be entering the fray in that jurisdiction. States have to regulate the industry on a state-by-state basis in the US, and NetEnt getting their foot in the door so early is a very big deal.

Pennsylvania Welcomes Net Entertainment

The third state to regulate online casino play has been Pennsylvania, and it has been confirmed that NetEnt casino games will be available there. They have been very aggressive about being one of the first to release in the emerging US markets, and it’s this style of aggression that has gotten them so much of the market share on a global level.

This announcement comes after their Interactive Gaming Manufacturer License was granted by the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board.

Pennsylvania is a pretty sizable market as one of the five largest of the United States, and it has an already established base of players thanks to a long-standing history of land-based gaming in the area. It’s obvious that this is a great market for NetEnt to be in for a variety of reasons.

Expansion in the United States

There is a US-specific subsidiary for Net Entertainment with the official name of NetEnt Americas LLC, and they have been very serious about staying on top of what’s happening with gambling regulations in the United States. Their work when online casino play was allowed in New Jersey and Delaware was very serious, and their history came into play there.

What’s really important to note is that Net Entertainment has been particularly consistent about not operating in countries that lack specific legislation regulating online casino play and making it explicitly illegal. The reason that’s so important is that it puts them in a position to be favorably viewed by groups like the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board.

Something that has happened before is that NetEnt has been fast-tracked for licensing (as what happened in New Jersey) because of this history and their commitment to only operating inside of jurisdictions where they are specifically allowed to by law. This looks great compared to a number of other software developers who do not care so much about this sort of thing.

A Comparison to Sweden

Therese Hillman is the CEO of NetEnt Group, and as CEO, Hillman made some relatively harsh comments about the state of things in Sweden when talking about the expansion to Pennsylvania.

The weak development in the Nordic countries continued in the second quarter, particularly in Sweden, where we have seen fewer players… since the new regulated was introduced at the beginning of the year.

What Hillman is referring to here is a new set of regulations in the country that really restrict business and the interest of players, and the comparison was made that the way Pennsylvania is handling things is different, so it’s a promising outlook.

We thought it was an interesting choice of comparison since it was completely unnecessary to throw shade at Sweden, but Hillman chose to do it anyway.

What to Expect Going Forward

There are a lot of ways that things can go, but we pretty much expect online casino play in Pennsylvania to start off pretty decently and slowly increase until it reaches a peak and starts to even off.

We say this because it’s been the pattern we’ve seen in both New Jersey and Delaware, and we’ve seen the same kind of thing happen in other regulated jurisdictions in other parts of the world. Simply put, it’s the pattern that these things almost always seem to follow unless there are some kind of mitigating factors.

With that having been said, anything could happen. Regardless of what does happen, however, Net Entertainment has positioned themselves to take full advantage of whatever happens to come up.